I know this question is not addressed to me but I found it amusing:
Of course, if there were no more humans on earth, rats would no longer be a problem for humans because there would be no humans to complain about. ^^
Instant Demolition Man Vibes lol. It does make sense though. If youre starving you’d eat anything you could get ahold of, and my city is apparently on permanent low food no matter how much I have lol.
some of the info has been removed because of changes, but I actually think it is still quite valid. I am using 9 squares. 1 for production, 4 farms, 2 pasture, and 2 rest. and I am cranking out the meat, hoping to be hitting the cheese hard too soon!
Today, rats are well-known vectors of disease.
It’s the same with mosquitoes, but it’s common sense to kill a carrier if you see one. Also, being stung is unpleasant.
During times of famine, humans ate anything, and a diverse food culture was born. Of course there are mice.
Rats may have been the cause of the village’s extinction in this game.
They see rats as mere enemies.
Rats meat is apparently similar to rabbit, chicken and raccoon meat (never had raccoon). And they can easily be used in any dish that uses rabbit or chicken.
Rat meat is oily and makes the meat pungent and gamey…
Im not going to try it myself as they may carry disease… and I just cant get over the thought of chowing down on rat… lol lol
I suppose our Farthest Frontier villagers could eat rats when there isn’t enough food to go around… followed by disease of course.
Which diseases actually stem from eating well barbecued rat meat? I’d assume the danger lies in being in contact with or bitten by the live ones (case in point with the Bubonic plague and the fleas on rats, not the rats themselves). So really people would need to avoid contact with the rat catcher (and other infected). Hope you placed their hut far from town and just moved the work areas.
Also, our common rat today (the big norvegicus) got to central Europe in the 18th century. The smaller previously common rat got to central Europe (and Africa) with the Roman Empire, and their population collapsed when the Romans left those central-european areas. That and the neccessary low temperatures are the reasons why the plague swept over Europe in several waves, afaik. Which hit not just urbanised areas, though.
So I wouldn’t say that rats lived with humans everywhere for thousands of years, but only in some regions of the world - and trade was probably more important for their spread than urbanization (although the two usually go hand in hand).
It would be in fact a resource of food in extreme conditions, where your people wouldnt die from starvation but from deceases after eating this kind of food…
Realistic.
I had an elderly relative (no longer with us) that was a prisoner of war in WW2. They didn’t get fed very well and he had to resort to eating rats to stay alive… and no, he didn’t die until many years later…
He never spoke much about it and I was very curious… I would just get a stern look from all my questions.
I get why many from that era would not talk of their experiences, but at the same time we all need to remember those times…my generation has basically forgotten.